The Companion Puppy
by Luna Peachie
Summary: A one-shot spin-off of Reconstructing Humanity, staring Sparky16's Buddy the Companion Pup and My Angie! An experiment and a little girl become quick friends after one promises the other to help find something missing.


_The Companion Puppy_

The bike ride towards the outside of the city felt longer each time Angie rode it. It was hard to ride with angry tears streaming down her face. Angela McLain, often called Angie for short, lived in the city with her older sister, Lillian (mostly known as Lil) in an apartment above the bookstore Lil ran. It was handed down from her parents when they died, and Lil was often there. Lil was often working hard, as she often refused to hire on new help. Past relationships and the death of her parents made it hard for Lil to trust people. Angie often felt lonely while Lil was working and they often fought about it.

Lil was twenty; Angie was six. The age difference between the two girls could be seen from space (by anyone or anything that just happened to be floating around up there, and enjoying it to the fullest). Lil often struggled to identify with her sister, but Lil's personal mantra was "Nothing worth doing is ever easy."

Their parents, Dr. and Mrs. McLain respectively, were overly cautious and Angie was sure that's where Lil picked it up. After their parent's deaths, Lil became overprotective of Angie. It started by switching her to a private school instead of the public school most of the neighborhood kids were going to. The uniform took some getting used to but it grew on Angie, since she liked wearing dresses. Then the stricter rules started: "come home right after school; wait for me in the apartment, no going up to the rooftop garden alone" etc. etc.

It wasn't that Angie didn't appreciate what Lil did for her and what she gave up to take care of her. Angie just couldn't seem to get through to her sister. Whenever she felt she needed to get away from Lil, Angie went to her "secret place". Essentially a run down, long abandoned gas station, Angie's Secret Place was where she went to escape her troubles. She had discovered it while on a field trip about a year ago and came back to it when school was out.

Deciding that no one would care, Angie made this run down gas station on the abandoned highway outside of town her own. She decorated it with chalk drawings and other knick knacks she thought would spruce the building up a bit. Food and drinks she had to buy at the convenience store right before the highway, but everything else was setup already. Angie often told herself that if she ever ran away, she'd live here.

Angie applied the brakes pretty hard on her little pink bike. Just getting the training wheels off, she felt she could go anywhere. Earlier that day, she and Lil had a small fight on the way to her school. Angie let it simmer for the whole while in class, then got her bike afterward and pedaled out to her secret place. She set her bike against the outside of the building under the awning and opened the door. It was never locked. She made sure of that.

Angie set up everything in her clubhouse and set her backpack on the floor in the backroom. She couldn't shake the sense that she was being watched. Angie shrugged it off and went back to setting up her makeshift picnic table out of a box (the contents of which she didn't know). Angie started setting up her little picnic. "One microwave burrito already microwaved." She said softly, as she placed her lukewarm burrito on the table. Angie reached into her backpack and looked around for her other snacks. She returned to the table momentarily and noticed the burrito was gone.

"Burrito?" she asked softly, looking around. Angie shrugged and opened a small container full of various snacks that she traded the lunch Lil packed her for it. She placed this on the makeshift table as well and went to find her drinks. She always bought the cheap brand of sodas as it was all her allowance would suffice, but before she could place the sodas down, she noticed her snack container was gone. "Hey!" she shouted, looking around. Angie perked up when she heard scampering in the front of the store.

Running to the front, Angie's eyes widened along with her smile when she saw a white and grey dog eating from the container. Angie wasn't sure what breed it was, but she knew it was cute. He had big floppy fluffy ears and a cute little tail that wagged faster as Angie approached him. "Hello, Mr. Doggy!" she said, excitedly. The dog sat and panted happily as Angie slowly approached him. Lil often told her not to approach strange animals, but this dog looked safe enough. Angie found it very easy to pet this dog.

Upon further inspection, Angie noted that he wore a yellow bandana with a big pink heart on it. Angie sat in front of the dog and looked the bandana over. The dog shook himself a bit and a small note fell from under the bandana. Angie wasn't the best reader, but she decided to give it a try. She opened the envelope slowly and took the letter out.

"_To Whomever Finds This Dog,_

_Hello and congratulations! This is Buddy. He is a very successful experiment from the wonderful people of Aperture Laboratories and now he is yours! While it is unfortunate the company could not make more than one, you are now the lucky owner of our Weighted Companion Puppy. Take good care of him. He was loved very much by someone very important. His care is that of any other dog as far as food and hygiene is concerned, but apart from that, he is no ordinary dog. He is very smart and learns fast. His standardized intelligence test scores surpassed that of any other dog. If you're good and love him enough, he'll help you in ways you'll never imagine! Buddy is a good dog and often helps people find something missing; whether they know it's missing or not! How fun!_

_Please love him and take care of him."_

Angie was able to read most of that (she had problems with some of the words, like "Aperture" and "Laboratories" and "Standardized Intelligence"). "Someone left you here, boy?" she asked softly. The dog shook his head. Buddy pointed his nose toward the open door of the building. "You came from the wheat field?" she asked. Buddy nodded and started panting again. "How can that be? I was told nothing lives out there anymore." Angie mumbled, walking to the doorway.

The wheat field on the other side of the abandoned highway was massive and stretched for miles. Angie was told the wheat growing in that field was wild and no one had tended it in years. Rumors around the city stated a defunct science lab used to have a secret underground facility underneath the field. But Lil often told Angie not to believe such stories. Angie looked over the note again and noticed there was an odd looking logo on the bottom of the paper. While she could have sworn she had seen it somewhere before, Angie dismissed the idea and placed the note down.

"Well, Buddy…looks like you belong to me now!" Angie said happily. "Come on, I'll give you the tour." Buddy followed Angie loyally. "This is my secret place. I come here a lot when my sister Lil and I fight. Do you have any siblings?" Angie asked, reaching into her backpack. Buddy looked as if he was shrugging, which made Angie giggle. "I love Lil, but she can be so mean sometimes. She used to be so cool until Mom and Dad died. Do you have a Mom and Dad?"

Again, Buddy made a shrugging motion. Angie took a picture out of her backpack. "I keep some pictures of my family on me everywhere I go. Here, take a look!" Angie spread out three pictures in front of the dog. One was of her and Lil, one was of two adults - her parents, and one was a just a picture of her mom. Buddy sniffed the last picture and licked it with a whine. Angie picked up her pictures and put them back in her bag. "Did your last owner look like my mom?" she asked softly.

Angie smiled and took out the picture of her mother again. "My mom died two years ago. She got really sick and the doctors couldn't help her. I miss her and Dad a lot." Angie's mother was a trim woman, despite being a little curvy on the hips. She had jet black hair, something Angie shared with her and her eyes were very distinctive. Buddy licked the picture again and whined. "Did your owner die too?" Angie asked, trying to fight back her own tears. Buddy nodded and rested on top of the picture of Angie's mom.

"You miss her a lot, I bet. I miss my mom a lot. She didn't talk much, but when she did, she had a nice soothing voice. Daddy said Mom's 'vocal cords', whatever those are, didn't work right, so she couldn't talk much. But she gave the best hugs and she made cake on Fridays for dessert. She was the best!"

Buddy turned his head, looking as if he was asking a question. "Lil didn't learn much from Mom as far as cooking goes. Lil is a veggie…veggie…umm…" Angie looked like she was struggling to say the work. "She's that thing where people don't eat meat. We usually just eat take-out because Lil is busy with the bookstore she runs."

Angie patted the dog on the head and smiled. "Lil is always busy. She does find time to do stuff with me though…so it isn't so bad."

The dog nudged his head under Angie's hand and smiled. A dog smiled at Angie. Angie didn't know if that was possible, but she didn't care. "Me and you can live here together, Buddy." Angie said, dreamily. "We'll sneak into the city at night and steal food and stuff."

Angie reached into her backpack and pulled out a pink rubber ball. "I took this from school." She giggled, as she tossed it against the wall. Buddy jumped into the air and grabbed it with his mouth before it could bounce back to Angie. "I've never seen a dog do that." She giggled, as Buddy gave her back her ball. Angie smiled and pulled out some pieces of paper and her crayons. "Want to draw with me, Buddy?" she asked, putting three crayons in front of the dog.

Buddy put a crayon in his mouth and started chewing on it. Angie giggled and started drawing. "I'm drawing Lil." She giggled, as she reached for the red crayon. Angie used a lot of dark colors to draw her sister. "Lil likes to wear black. Most of the girls at my school think she's a witch." She giggled, drawing devil horns and fire coming from Lil's mouth. Angie looked over at Buddy, who seemed to be drawing with the crayon in his mouth.

Angie picked up the drool covered crayon and glared at it. She looked down and what she saw amazed her. Buddy had drawn a lady. A very detailed drawing of a lady with black hair and a red scarf. "That's amazing! Was she your owner?" Angie asked. Buddy nodded and laid his head on the drawing. "Don't be sad, Buddy. Maybe you can come home with me!"

Perking his ears up, Buddy looked at Angie hopefully. "Yeah, you can! I'm sure Lil won't mind. She's always going on about getting a cat. I don't like cats, though." Angie huffed, folding her arms. Buddy seemed to share her sentiments. "My Aunt Janie has a big mean cat that always growls at me whenever Lil and I go visit her. He's ugly for one." Angie giggled and noticed the dog chuckling as well. "He's big, fat, and he doesn't have a tail anymore because he tried to fight off a raccoon once!" Angie held her stomach laughing, with Buddy nudging himself close.

Wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes, Angie sat up and smiled. "Want to go outside, doggy?" she asked happily. Buddy nodded and led the way.

Outside, Angie showed Buddy around her secret place. Basically nothing but an abandoned gas station, Angie had made it her own, with chalk drawings on the sidewalk and little drawings on the side with paint she swiped from her art class from time to time. "Here, Buddy!" she said, as she put down an opened canister of paint. Taking some small paintbrushes from her pocket, she dipped the brush and started to paint the side of the wall. Her doggy companion did the same with his paws.

Angie painted her rendition of herself and Buddy. Buddy barked happily and wagged his tail. Angie's artwork was surprisingly good. "Miss Jennings, my teacher, says I have a natural talent." She giggled. Angie watched as Buddy started to paint. While mostly just paw prints, Angie found it amazing (for a dog).

"Your note said you can help people find stuff that's missing. Is that true?" Angie asked out of the blue. Buddy nodded and licked Angie's hand. "How do I know if something's missing?" Angie bent down and looked the dog in the eyes. Buddy blinked, but Angie felt he was asking her a question. "Do I think something is missing?" Angie walked toward the front of the store and leaned against a pole. "I don't know. Things haven't been the same since Mom and Dad died. I don't know if anything is missing for me except them. But they aren't lost. I know where they are. Right beside the walkway near the big tree in the Freeman Street Cemetery."

Buddy followed her and nudged his head under her hand. "I don't think the groundskeepers at the graveyard would appreciate you digging them up. Besides, Lil says it's not right to disturb a resting place. That might be why she gets mad when I jump on her bed in the mornings to wake her up." Angie looked up at the sky and noted the dark clouds from yesterday were still lingering about. "We had a really big storm last night. I hope you weren't out in it. It got really bad. Some of the plants on Lil's store almost came clean off."

Liking the way Angie was scratching behind his ears, Buddy licked her tiny fingers, causing her to giggle. "Well, the note said you'd help me find something, even if I didn't know it was missing, but I don't think anything is missing. Lil might be missing something, though." Angie giggled. "Ever since she had that guy she was dating arrested, she's been more mopey than usual. That was at least last year, but it still depresses her. But she can't be missing that, can she? He was so mean."

Angie watched as the wind blew the wheat in the field softly. "Something missing…" she muttered. Buddy's ears shot up and he looked over at the wheat field. He yelped happily and started running towards the old dirt path in the field. "Buddy! Come back!" Angie shouted as she ran after the dog.

Angie knew better than to go into the wheat field. Who knew what kind of animals inhabited the long abandoned fields? Angie didn't think about that as she ran after the dog. Being six, Angie couldn't run very fast and almost immediately lost sight of the dog. She kept running despite being breathless and having to lean against a pole a little ways down the path. Angie looked everywhere and didn't see anything. Buddy was gone. Angie may have been six, but even she knew a dog couldn't run that fast. Where did Buddy go?

The path was pretty straight and went for a while, but Angie didn't see any sign that a dog had even been on this path. "Maybe Lil was right about being around all those old fumes in a gas station for too long." Angie rubbed her head and leaned against the pole again. She felt something next to her leg and looked down. It was a black backpack with a weird logo on the outer pocket. It looked like the same logo that was on the note Buddy had on him. Angie picked it up and looked at it. "Maybe Buddy found his owner…" she said, softly.

When she heard rustling in the nearby grass (too big to be a dog, she assumed), Angie took the backpack and ran down the path. In essence, she wasn't sure why she took the backpack. She also wasn't sure if a dog that smart was truly real. But he had felt real. She felt his wet nose on her hand and they even played together. As she got closer to the abandoned highway, she could hear footsteps behind her. Angie summoned up all of her energy and ran into the abandoned gas station full force. She plopped the backpack behind the old counter and went to hide in the back.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" said a funny accent.

_Meanwhile, in the city_

"What do you mean you didn't see her go home after school?" the lady behind the counter of the bookstore yelled into the phone. This lady, Lil - Angie's big sister, felt her day couldn't get much worse. First, she had a big fight with Angie this morning, then the shipment of books she ordered was late, and now her sister was missing. "Oh…I think I know where she is. Thank you, again." Lil hung up the phone and grabbed her keys.

Lil switched the lights off and turned the closed sign around on the doorway. "Secret place…yeah, secret like a dragon attacking the city during an alien invasion." Lil mumbled as she locked up the store. As Lil made her way to her Jeep, she looked just up the block at a dog, which seemed to be staring at her. "I wonder whose dog that is." She asked herself, as she got into her car. Upon closer inspection, Lil noticed the dog had a bandana around its neck. The heart on it looked familiar. VERY familiar. "Wait a sec…"

She shook herself out of her day dream. "Snap out of it. You don't have time for this." Lil shouted to herself, as she started driving away.

Something about that dog didn't seem right to Lil, but she tried not to think about it. She had to find her sister. Lil knew of Angie's "secret place" and had often found her there. She hated driving all the way out of the city to find her sister, but Lil loved Angie very much and would drive to the moon if she could to find her little sister.

The old highway outside of the city didn't get much commuter traffic anymore. It had been long abandoned after the Combine Invasion destroyed some of the road a few miles down the road from Angie's "secret place" and other highways had been built. No one really asked why the city didn't simply rebuild the road. Of course, these were things Lil didn't really care to think about. It took a little while, but Lil made her way down the old highway and eventually stopped at the abandoned gas station.

A little ways away, Buddy looked up from the wheat and saw everything happen. Lil reuniting with Angie, Lil meeting the tall man and them getting into Lil's car and leaving. Buddy smiled to himself and wagged his tail as he watched the yellow jeep drive off. Satisfied that he had completed this puzzle, Buddy happily meandered off toward the wheat field.

He wasn't sure what would happen to the little makeshift family, but he grinned in the satisfaction that eventually they would all know what they were missing and none of them would ever realize a little dog, made up in a long abandoned science facility, had a hand in helping them find out.

And so, Buddy, the Weighted Companion Puppy, trotted off to his next adventure.

* * *

><p><strong>N'cha, everyone! Luna Peachie here!<strong>

**This lovely little one-shot spinoff is the brainchild of myself and my good friend Sparky16. It's a one shot of my chapter three of Reconstructing Humanity. Oh! Before I continue, this will be made into a comic by Sparky16! Isn't that awesome? Go check out some of her work here and on deviantart. She has a tumblr too so check that out as well!**

**Reviews are much appreciated, so have a go, my friends! So, sit back, and enjoy, my doves!**

**Lil and Angie are mine, Buddy belongs to Sparky16 and all Valve characters belong to...well, Valve ^_^ **


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